With freezing conditions at the beginning of January and more ice – and even snow – promised for next week, Dorset Council’s gritting crews have been making full use of their new vehicles.

The council has invested £3.5 million in 25 new gritting vehicles. Ten are being used now, and 15 more are on order for delivery before next winter.

Some of the old vehicles were over 10 years old and were becoming unreliable and incurring expensive maintenance costs for the council. The new vehicles are the cleanest and most efficient diesel heavy goods vehicles available in the UK, meeting Euro 6 requirements to reduce exhaust emissions.

Cllr Ray Bryan, portfolio holder for Highways, Travel, and Environment said: “I popped over to our Ferndown depot recently to meet some of our dedicated crew and saw some of our new vehicles in action.

“Investing in a new fleet of vehicles was a necessity for the council. The old lorries have provided years of steadfast service, but the time had come to replace them with vehicles that are more reliable, efficient and better for the environment.

“Combined with our route-based system using local ground temperatures, we can identify the roads needing to be gritted, rather than a blanket approach, saving money, salt and time.

“Our crews are on call for six months every winter to keep our roads safe. Please be courteous when you see them and if you are behind a gritting vehicle, please be patient.”

The vehicles treat 684 miles of roads that form Dorset Council’s 23 main gritting routes.

The council uses a route-based weather forecasting system to identify which roads need to be gritted. This enables them to grit roads only when needed. This is better for the environment, and saves money, with less salt used and fewer lorry journeys.

Ninety members of the council’s regular highways team are on standby during the winter months for on-call duties day and night. It is a core requirement of the council to keep its primary salting network free of snow and ice so this takes priority night or day over all other works. This can sometimes impact delivery of planned highways works during the winter.